Mystery of the Visible
by SHIELD-HR
Summary: SHIELD's best agent, Phil Coulson, and his newest recruit and trainee, Maria Hill, manage to get stranded in the middle of a Scottish forest. Seeking refuge at the only building they can find, they fall right into a mystery that will take both of them to solve. If they can survive the night.
1. Chapter 1

This was just great, just _wonderful_. Coulson was supposed to have checked the car. Dammit, _she'd_ checked the car too, but here they were, in the middle of the frakken Scotland, where the nearest large town was hours away, in a broken down SUV. It was also cold and windy. It might have been raining, except that the sky hadn't fully committed to the act and was half-assing the icy drizzle that was mostly fog anyway.

Maria was in a pisser of a mood.

"Look, I said I was sorry." Coulson wasn't sorry, though. His smirk, even muted by the weather and hidden in shadows,shone through in the so-familiar voice. He was mostly amused, but he wouldn't be for long; there was a jamming field in the area. She scowled and waited for him to notice.

The soft curse brought a tight smirk to her lips, and she stepped outside of the broken car cautiously, avoiding bits of shredded tire almost daintily, and stopped next to him. "Yeah. So, do we investigate or walk out and call for back-up?"

"Well, you're here. I'm not sure how much more back-up I need." He drew his gun and checked it easily, noting with a feeling of pride that she was doing the same. He was training her well, he thought. She'd outrank him someday, and he was perfectly fine with that.

"Well, I sure as hell don't need any with you here, sir. Coulson." It was habit, and it was dying hard. Only one year out from Madripoor and she was still trying to lose the habits of being ten years a Marine. "There's a path over there," she motioned with her head and took up a flanking position on his left. "It's a bit too pat to be coincidence."

"Agreed. Let's stay off the coincidental path, then." He led her to the side, and they moved off into the nasty Scottish weather. There were woods here, thick and gnarled with age. Maria ran her mental map back trough her brain and decided this must be the last remnants of Birnam Forest. The wound their way through the woods until they saw a faint glow, or rather a collection of them, and realized there was a house out here in the middle of the woods.

"Is that a castle?" The sheer bulk of the dwelling would seem ot indicate one, but Coulson shook his head. "Tudor manor house, probably. Still pretty big, but no drafty stone corridors."

"No vampires either." She tried to sound disappointed, and was not reassured when he shook his head.

"Vampires could be anywhere, Hill. Remember that." She tried not to gape at his back, and kept her eyes on the trees that stretched threatening twigs and gnarled branches into their path to snag and tear at the unaware.

"Good thing we had Italian, then." His soft snort of suppressed laughter carried back to her and soother her nerves somewhat. She was used to deserts, and ruined buildings, not trees and rain that refused to live up to the name. Not mysterious castles that weren't and jamming fields i the middle of pristine medieval forests.

But this was Phil's world, and it was one he'd brought her in to be a part of and in which she could share. He'd believed in her when she didn't believe in herself, and she'd be damned before she'd let him down. So she followed as they circled the house, peeking into windows and noting the apparently harmless party going on inside.

"Thoughts, Hill?"

"Well… I don't know. The field has to be coming from around here, but they don't seem to have noticed. Unless they set it and so have no need to discover it. Um." She checked abruptly and pointed; just visible in the fog was a security camera. Coulson nodded understanding and they pulled back to the treeline.

"Good points, all. What would you recommend we do?" He was always doing this, giving her a problem to solve. She'd been an officer, she was used to tactics, but the set of tactics under Coulson were always changing.

"I'd go in. We can't go back; it's getting colder and we will freeze. We could break in or we could walk up and ask for sanctuary." She holstered her gun and snugged her jacket around it. "I vote for the more ballsy one."

Coulson glanced back at the shadow and lights drifting in the mist and nodded. "Ballsy it is then. Lead on, Macduff." He holstered his own weapon as he misquoted solemnly, and motioned her to walk ahead of him. They looked every bit the lost, bedraggled, and weary travelers they were pretending to be.

Normally, Coulson would at this point have taken his jacket off and draped it around the shoulders of the woman who was stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the chattering of her teeth as she walked beside him. But he had a gun in a shoulder holster, and they were about to crash a party in what his gut told him was hostile territory. The jacket would remain on.

It wasn't as if she'd have accepted it had he offered.


	2. Chapter 2

Maria, for her part, focused on identifying security features and cameras in case it became relevant later. When Coulson reached out an unneeded hand to her elbow in a steadying gesture, she knew he'd seen the twitch of a curtain in the entryway windows as well. So she added a bit of a wobble to her gait, an artful stumble, and played up the part of the completely frozen and nature-hating person she was supposed to be.

"Just remember you're my secretary."

"That's sexist."

"It's practical, and explains why you keep calling me sir."

"Touche."

"That would be harassment." His face remained inscrutable, but Maria knew him well and could hear the amusement rippling under the surface. "You'll have time to get me back for the indignity, I'm sure."

"Damn straight, sir."

Coulson gave her a Look and reached a hand to the door. He had barely touched skin to weathered wood when it was opened by a suit-clad man with a rather annoyed expression on his face. He was every inch the stereotypical harassed butler. "Welcome to Canmore House."

The man stood aside to let the dripping agents into the hallway, where the distant sounds of laughter and clinking glasses reminded the Americans (_and_ what_ else could they be with those cuts of suits and no coats in this weather?)_ that they were both cold and hungry. "I am terribly sorry, but are you expected?"

"Well, no," said Coulson, as he took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to Maria so she could dry her face off. "Our car seems to have shredded a tire, and I'm afraid the rim bent beyond my ability to repair it."

"I see. I will notify madame as to your presence, and call for assistance. May I know your names?" Maria handed the cloth back to Coulson, marveling that the butler hadn't gone cross-eyed with all the looking down his nose he was doing.

"Carlson, I'm Mark Carlson. This is my P.A., Mary Morstan." Maria shot Coulson a glare as the butler nodded and led them to a side room to await the dispensation of the lady of the house.

"Mary Morstan," she whispered once the man had gone.

"Be quiet, Mary."

"At least you didn't say your name was John Watson."

"That was an order."

"Yes, sir."

There was, at least, a roaring fire in the grate, and they moved towards it without the need for discussion. Their clothes nearest the grate steamed gently, and Maria let the thought occur that she might at some point in her future be warm again.

"If I catch pneumonia and die, sir, I am going to haunt you."

"So noted." Coulson hated getting his suit messed up; it just wasn't professional, but he was more worried about his junior agent. She'd spent most of the last decade gallivanting around dry deserts as a Marine, and though it got cold there, it wasn't wet and cold. "Should that happen, rest assured I will mourn you my life long."

"You'd better," she murmured as they both felt a draft across their backs and noticed a flicker in the flames. "Who else will take your notes and remember how you take your coffee?" Her voice was the mildly peeved tone of the rightfully aggrieved secretary, and Coulson privately applauded her choice. She was coming along nicely.

"I have been instructed to see you both to a guest suite where dry clothing of a suitable nature is laid out." The butler ushered them out of the room and down a darkened hallway, then up stairs so narrow and steep Coulson knew they must be the servants' stairs. He supposed the pair of them were being insulted in some manner.

"You'll forgive us, but all the other rooms are occupied, I was compelled to place you and your… secretary into one suite." Now Maria caught the insulting tone and the insinuation burned in her gut.

"We'll make due, thank you. We'll be out of your hair," and here Maria silently cheered Coulson's wording because the butler had no hair on his shiny head to speak of, "as soon as the tow truck or whatever you folks have shows up."

The butler sniffed haughtily and practically herded them into the suite before slamming the door and storming away.


End file.
